


Five Times Mulder Made a Map

by anonstarbuck



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5617504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonstarbuck/pseuds/anonstarbuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully thinks back on 5 maps she got from Mulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Mulder Made a Map

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icedteainthebag](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedteainthebag/gifts).



**I.** The first time he made a map for her, she wasn’t aware that he was doing it. Her pragmatic brain had always categorised map-making as a painstaking art form. Maps were supposed to be on paper, measured, scaled, filled with lines and spaces. Her father had beautiful ones of the waters he had sailed, and she’d realised as she grew older that this was Ahab’s way of keeping a journal.

 

No, Mulder’s first map was abstract. It was a map of her. He’d charted paths in her body, tracing lines that connected her hipbone to the bow of her clavicle. He’d marked the swirl of her navel and a jolt of electricity had blazed between her legs. He’d sailed her body like Magellan, sketching it for her to learn it in a way she didn’t think possible at her age. He sketched it for himself to commit to memory, to learn her like a favourite ocean. He navigated her thighs, learned the winds of her breathing and would adjust his sails accordingly. He could anchor her with his thumb on the middle of her lower back, tether her with hands her over her head, his fingers tightly interlaced with hers.

 

Mulder’s first map for her had made her call out his name when he found and marked her spot with the X of his tongue.

 

**II.** For five weeks she had carried a napkin in her pocket and she couldn’t help but touch it like a precious thing. Usually, the names they chose for themselves and the names of the series of dusty, nondescript towns they bounced from slipped her mind as soon as they were leaving. They were always in a different car, and always a small article of their previous life, whether tangible or intangible, was left behind in the room they’d been bunkered up in.

Always exhausted, always afraid.

 

They had agreed to split. The feeling that they had been found out and followed was overwhelming them. The men were close and they were coming. She and Mulder had nursed their coffee, black as petrol, and she had watched him draw a map on the back of the diner’s napkin using long, elegant lines. “Five weeks, Scully. Right there in five weeks.” He pointed at the X. “Try not to stay more than four days in one place. Try to eat well.”

 

She had locked eyes with him, asking the same of him, her chest tightening with the idea of his absence. Of him alone. He had taken her hand and squeezed it three times: _I-love-you._ She blinked back tears, took the napkin and left. She knew that in five weeks time she’d feel like Noah finding dry land.

 

**III.** She’d woken up and silence was drowning the apartment. The snow was falling mutely outside and she knew he wasn’t home. Today was her third week working at Our Lady of Sorrows and it felt good to slip back into doctor mode. She eased into the rounds and the paperwork. and thrived on healing the living instead of dissecting the dead. She’d padded out of their bedroom to start the coffee and found a note on the kitchen table: _Scully._ _Here at 9 p.m. Don’t be late._ There was a Mulder-drawn map below the note, leading her out of the small city towards unnamed rural roads. A silver key was taped to the page. She had smiled slowly. They always kept each other guessing.

 

Twelve hours later she was driving on a dirt road, windshield wipers straining against the falling snow. “Where the hell are you taking me, Mulder?” she muttered under her breath while fiddling with the radio trying to find a station with signal, but after finding none, shut it off instead.

 

She was near the X when she saw his car parked outside a small, unremarkable house. With a mix of excitement and trepidation, she walked up the steps and opened the door only to find a fire blazing and the furniture from their apartment arranged in front of it. Her eyebrows knitted together in bewilderment and she had felt his hand around her waist and his beard nuzzling the curve of her neck.

 

“Happy birthday, Scully,” he mumbled while he showed her his copy of the key. “I hope you like it.”

 

**IV.** “Scully wake up.”

 

She’d groaned into her pillow and edged her body closer to his warmth. He had reached around to both embrace her and to lazily unbutton the front of her silk pajamas. She sighed as she let him take off her top, and he had started pressing his lips to her shoulder blades in small, fluttering kisses.

 

“I need you to do something for me,” he had breathed into her hair.

 

Scully had quivered in anticipation. “What would that be, Mulder?”

 

And then he had given her instructions on how to get to a new place, using her back as a blank page. She vibrated while he traced familiar roads on her spine and the rest of her back with his fingers. “You’ll find a clearing to the right. There’s a big oak tree. Meet me there.” He then proceeded to kiss her in the place that would mark the spot.

 

He had been waiting for her, sitting underneath the tree on the picnic blanket she had bought years ago and that she’d wanted to use more often.

 

“Sit with me, Scully. I cut the cheese,” he’d said while gesturing at his setup of white wine and grapes. He had licked his lips and run a weathered hand through his hair, and so she knew to keep silent, although not why. He had closed his eyes as he reached into his pocket while the breeze moved the leaves around them. He only opened them when he was holding the ring in front of her. It always amazed her how quickly her lust for this man could turn to tenderness. Her face was soft when she looked at him and had taken the ring from his trembling fingers to slide it on her left hand. When she looked back up he was smiling full-mouthed and she had leaned in to kiss him yes.

 

**V.** She gets a text message from him, it’s a screenshot of a map. He has added his own X. When she understands, an animal-like whimper escapes her, coming from deep within her chest.

 

Next to the X he has simply written: _William._  

**Author's Note:**

> This is the my third fic and first time that I've ever had a beta. Thank you @icedteainthebag for your help and encouragement. And thank @storybycorey for making me feel so welcome. <3


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